Plasma sphingomyelins increase in pre-diabetic Korean men with abdominal obesity

Abdominal or visceral obesity is a well-known risk factor for metabolic diseases. However, whether abdominal obesity significantly affects plasma lipid profile during the development of type 2 diabetes has not been fully elucidated. We investigated the differences in plasma lipid concentrations in 63 participants categorized into six groups (middle-aged Korean men); Normal, Pre-diabetes (pre-DM), and Diabetes mellitus (DM) with or without abdominal obesity (AO or lean). The lipidomic profiles were determined by using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). Sphingomyelin (SM) levels in plasma were significantly higher in the pre-DM with AO than in pre-DM with lean (p = 0.021). SM concentrations correlated positively with waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) (r = 0.256, p = 0.044), cholesteryl ester (CE) (r = 0.483, p < 0.0001), ceramide (r = 0.489, p < 0.0001) and plasmanyl phosphatidylcholine (PC) (r = 0.446, p < 0.0001). The present study found that pre-diabetic patients with AO were characterized by increased plasma concentrations of SM. Plasma SM levels in individuals with AO may be an early prognostic biomarker to better predict the progression toward type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome.